Reviewed by Ian Lipke
Annette Kellerman had little hope of living a normal, suburban life, at least that’s the way Grantlee Kieza tells her story in his latest biography. The granddaughter of a grandmother and mother who could be classed only as odd, and a grandfather who, in his eccentricity, chose to live his life through hers, Annette Kellerman was fortunate to inherit an ability that allowed her to cope with and lastly to master the oddness of her life. She held a burning ambition to make a success of her life on the stage and was encouraged to defy social norms from childhood. This was a tenuous situation at best but, with the onset of childhood rickets, her future was grim indeed.
Kellerman’s life is divided in the text into periods, four of which are given more attention than others. The first is her childhood, a large component of which was governed by her illness and the frustration it produced. This manifested in the thrashing of boys. This anti-social behaviour eventually became channelled into the breaking of records and astonishing huge crowds with her skill at diving from great heights. Kieza makes it clear that she treated sport as a religion.
By 1905 Kellerman was eighteen and on her way to England. Her plans were to challenge endurance records by swimming the Thames River and eventually the English Channel. Throughout the book her phenomenal level of fitness is stressed as is her speed through the water. Having failed at her attempt in crossing the channel, she directed her attention to vaudeville where she scandalised society by appearing in public in a one-piece swimming costume that exposed her legs. The result of this was the promotion of a new fashion and the freeing of women from their cumbersome neck to-knee costume.
Hollywood embraced her as ‘the perfect woman’. She became the sex symbol of silent films, with her risqué and provocative costumes, or sometimes no costume at all. Kieza reports that she was immortalised in a Hollywood production starring Esther Williams. Of greater benefit is her promotion of health, fitness and independence of women.
The stages identified by Kieza are childhood with its rickets scare, her swimming and diving activities, and thirdly her vaudeville and film activities. One would never expect that the next stage of her life would involve becoming a ballet dancer. One should not have been so surprised if one had remembered that her training regime every day of her adult life consisted of six lessons every day conducted by famous ballet master Albertrieri.
She was invited to appear in this enterprise by Broadway producer, Daniel Frohman, in a program which feature some of the biggest stars in America. Kellerman performed The Dying Swan solo, a dance created by Anna Pavlova. Kellerman stunned the audience. She remained active in producing films such as A Daughter of the Gods, in 1916 at the age of thirty. This film which has been said she starred nude has been quoted as the greatest picture ever made. Kieza claims that there were forty companies involved in its publicity: three times as many as for Quo Vadis.
At this stage of her life, she also took up golf and hit the ball so hard and straight her competitors were stunned. For learning about other escapades and careers she undertook, one would have to read the book yourselves.
To the end of her life Annette Kellerman pushed the boundaries. On the day of her death, she tried to prove that she still had the ability to walk independently. Her doctor said, ‘You could say she died of a heart attack but really she just ran out of steam in her ninetieth year’.
Annette Kellerman Australian Mermaid
(2025)
by Grantlee Kieza
ABC Books with Harper Collins
ISBN:978-0-7333-4330-8
$35.99; 362pp